Well, it works, but in bypass with the color switch in the up position the oscillation is even worse than before…it sounds very much like a bird. From the pictures of the reissue small stone with a 3pdt switch I can see that a different wiring is used. How does it work?

I’ve got this oscillation in bypass problem too.
Putting a dpdt switch on my 1979 Small Stone made
the oscillation problem worse. I didn’t quite
understand Ned’s description above. Can someone
please show on a picture where I should solder the
wire to “effect in” and “ground”.

Hey, as I understand it, there are differences regarding the layout of parts in the different issues of the small stone…the main thing is, you have to identify the “effect input” like ned flanders wrote: not on the input jack, but the input on the circuit board (the spot where the signal is fed to the phaser) - then you run a wire to ground. You should already have figured that one out, because the true bypass wouldn’t work otherwise. On a website called general guitar gadgets you will find a description of the wires. If I recall it correctly mine were different. But after a little bit of trial and error I found a way it worked. I dont have a digital camera, but I see if I can borrow one. You should see a gutshot of my small stone by the end of the week. But it looks rather messy - I would make a really gruesome surgeon.
:D

Hey, as I understand it, there are differences regarding the layout of parts in the different issues of the small stone…the main thing is, you have to identify the “effect input” like ned flanders wrote: not on the input jack, but the input on the circuit board (the spot where the signal is fed to the phaser) - then you run a wire to ground.

Cheers, Michael

No you don’t, you wire the switch so when its in bypass mode the input of the circuit is switched to ground. If you just wire the circuit to ground it wont work,ever.

The second/lower of the true-buypass pictures is exactly the one you need to follow: Notice how it connects the circuit board input to ground when the circuit is bypassed.

On the picture of your smallstone guts, the circuitboard input is just off-centre of the board and currently connected by the black wire to the bottom left lug on the footswitch. This gives you true bypass switching, but without the input being grounded (i.e. it’s the same as the TOP picture of the two true-bypass schematics you posted). Just rearrange the connections so it ressembles the second picture. The white wire that emerges from the circuit board immediately next to the input wire and connects to the lug opposite the black input wire is the effect output. The red wire on the switch is the pedal input, and the white wire opposite that on the switch is the pedal output.

I just got a used Sovtek/Russian Smallstone. One of the newer ones in the smaller black box with just four screws on the top.

It doesn’t work. It lights up and passes a signal. The color switch even engages (you can hear a filter change). But there is no phase and the rate knob does nothing.

I am thinking it might be a ground problem. Inside all looks OK except there is a white ground wire that is not attached to anything. One end has a small washer to screw it down somewhere, the other end was soldered to something but now it is just flopping around loose.